Who wrote this: We build free WordPress and Shopify themes and free browser tools, and the first of the 9 entries below — The Big Head Free Tools — is ours. We list it first deliberately, because it is what we would use, and you should read it with that in mind. It carries the same fields as every other entry, including a stated drawback. There are no affiliate links on this page: we earn nothing whichever one you pick.
Disclosure: the first entry below is our own free tools page. It is first because it is ours, not because a scoring process put it there. It is judged on the same fields as everything else and carries the same downside column. Every claim about another product comes from that product's own site, pricing page or privacy policy, and the sources are listed with each entry.
You have an invoice with your bank details on it, or a signed contract, or a photo of your passport, and it needs to be smaller or merged or converted. The decision you are actually making is not which of forty near identical websites has the nicer button. It is whether that file gets sent to a company you have never dealt with, sits on their servers for a while, and then gets deleted on their schedule rather than yours.
That single distinction splits the whole category in two. Some tools do the work inside your browser, on your own processor, so the file never travels. Others upload it, process it on their hardware, and send the result back. The second group is not dishonest about this and most of them publish deletion windows, but the file has still left your machine. For a holiday snap that is fine. For a client contract it is a decision worth making on purpose. Below are nine free tools, ours first, sorted by that question and judged on the same fields.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| The Big Head Free Tools (ours) | Small everyday file jobs on a document you would rather not upload | Free. No account, no paid tier, no upsell |
| Squoosh | Pushing one image as small as it will go while watching the quality change | Free and open source. No paid tier |
| Photopea | Layered image editing and opening PSD files without installing anything | Free to use. Premium is sold as a one-off purchase for a fixed access period rather than a subscription |
| TinyPNG | Getting PNG and JPEG weight off a website with almost no decisions to make | Free tier in the browser with limits. Web Pro and Web Ultra are paid subscriptions |
| iLovePDF | The widest spread of PDF operations under one roof | Free tier with per-tool task limits. Premium is a subscription billed monthly or yearly |
| Smallpdf | A tidy, well-signposted PDF workflow with signing attached | Free tier with stated limits. Pro is a subscription, offered with a free trial |
| PDF24 Tools | Free PDF work with no task counter running in the background | Free with no restrictions stated. The Windows desktop version is also free |
| Adobe Acrobat online tools | PDF and Office conversion from the vendor that publishes the PDF specification | Limited free use, then an Acrobat subscription |
| Canva free tools | Quick edits where the output is a finished design rather than a converted file | Free plan with an account. Canva Pro is a paid subscription |
The tools in detail
The Big Head Free Tools
Ours- Best for
- Small everyday file jobs on a document you would rather not upload
- Highlights
- 24 tools in one place, covering image compression and HEIC conversion, image resizing, PDF merge and split, QR codes, invoices, a tier list maker, a meme generator, a favicon generator, a password generator, a JSON formatter and a contrast checker
- Every tool runs entirely inside the browser, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored on a server
- No sign-up and no watermark on anything you produce. There is no upload limit because there is no upload, though the practical ceiling is your own device's memory
- Includes a GST and HST calculator and an invoice generator set up for Canadian rates
- Pricing
- Free. No account, no paid tier, no upsell
- Watch out
- There is no batch mode, no API and no automation, so files are handled one at a time. Nothing is saved between sessions, so there is no history and no sync across devices. There is no OCR and no Word or Excel conversion, so scanned documents and Office jobs need a different tool. Large files are processed by your own phone or laptop, and an older device will be slow or run out of memory before a server would.
Squoosh
- Best for
- Pushing one image as small as it will go while watching the quality change
- Highlights
- Genuinely client side. The site states that images never leave your device because Squoosh does all the work locally
- A before and after slider with a live file size readout, so you can see exactly what a quality setting costs you
- Built by Google Chrome Labs and published as open source, so the local processing claim can be checked in the code
- No account and no sign-up of any kind
- Pricing
- Free and open source. No paid tier
- Watch out
- It does one job. There is no PDF, document or utility side to it, no batch or multi-file mode is offered on the app, and heavy encoding work runs on your own hardware.
Photopea
- Best for
- Layered image editing and opening PSD files without installing anything
- Highlights
- The privacy policy states that files you open in Photopea are never sent anywhere and never leave your device, and are processed completely inside your device by your own hardware
- Opens layered files including PSD, plus XCF, Sketch, XD and PDF, all in the browser
- The full editor is available without paying, rather than a cut-down free mode
- No account is needed to edit. The privacy policy says that if you do log in, the server stores your name, email address, a copy of your preferences, and payment information if you have bought Premium
- Pricing
- Free to use. Premium is sold as a one-off purchase for a fixed access period rather than a subscription
- Watch out
- This is a full editor rather than a one-click utility, so the learning curve is closer to desktop image software than to a single-purpose tool, and there is nothing here for PDFs, invoices or the small everyday jobs.
TinyPNG
- Best for
- Getting PNG and JPEG weight off a website with almost no decisions to make
- Highlights
- The page states "Up to 20 images, max 5 MB each" for the free web tool
- Handles JPEG XL, AVIF, WebP, JPG, PNG and APNG for compression, and converts between them
- Compression is fully automatic. There is no quality slider or settings panel, so the only decision is which files to drop in
- The site states that only you have access to the images you upload, and that they are retained for a maximum of 48 hours and then permanently deleted
- Pricing
- Free tier in the browser with limits. Web Pro and Web Ultra are paid subscriptions
- Watch out
- Files are uploaded and held for up to 48 hours by the company's own account. The 5 MB free ceiling rules out most camera originals, and the page states that free format conversion covers up to three images.
iLovePDF
- Best for
- The widest spread of PDF operations under one roof
- Highlights
- Covers merge, split, compress, organise, Office conversion and OCR in one consistent interface
- Free file size allowances vary widely by tool on iLovePDF's own pricing page, from 15 MB on the Office conversions and OCR up to 100 MB on merge, 200 MB on compress and 400 MB on redact and compare
- The privacy policy commits to deleting the files of your content within two hours of being processed on iLovePDF's servers
- It states plainly that it does not use your content to train, improve or develop its AI models or any third-party AI models
- Pricing
- Free tier with per-tool task limits. Premium is a subscription billed monthly or yearly
- Watch out
- The free plan meters you per tool rather than overall, so compression and Office conversions run out after very few tasks, and every file has to be uploaded before anything happens to it.
Smallpdf
- Best for
- A tidy, well-signposted PDF workflow with signing attached
- Highlights
- Smallpdf states "30 tools to convert, compress, and edit PDFs for free", grouped into one workspace
- States that it uses 256-bit TLS encryption for secure information transfer
- States that it is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and GDPR, CCPA and nFADP compliant, which is unusual to publish in this category
- Signing and requesting signatures sit in the same account as the conversion tools rather than in a separate product
- Pricing
- Free tier with stated limits. Pro is a subscription, offered with a free trial
- Watch out
- Smallpdf does not publish a numeric free allowance. Its pricing page lists the free plan as "Limited document downloads" and "Limited access", with "Unlimited document downloads" and unlimited access to all 30+ tools reserved for Pro, so you find the ceiling by hitting it. Files are also processed on Smallpdf's servers rather than on your device.
PDF24 Tools
- Best for
- Free PDF work with no task counter running in the background
- Highlights
- States that you can use all PDF24 tools free of charge and without any restrictions, and that there are no artificial limits at PDF24
- A large tool set that does not gate the useful half behind an upgrade
- States that file transfers to the PDF24 servers are encrypted and that all files are completely removed from their servers after a short time
- PDF24 Creator is offered as free full-featured software for Windows, described as 100% free and free of spyware, for people who would rather not use the online version
- Pricing
- Free with no restrictions stated. The Windows desktop version is also free
- Watch out
- The site is explicit that the online tools process files on PDF24 servers, so the browser version still uploads. The local alternative is a Windows download, which is no help on a Mac, an iPhone or an Android phone.
Adobe Acrobat online tools
- Best for
- PDF and Office conversion from the vendor that publishes the PDF specification
- Highlights
- Converts to and from Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and compresses, merges and signs, using Adobe's own engine
- Signing in with a free Adobe ID lets you fill, sign, share and add comments to files at no cost
- Runs in a supported desktop browser with nothing to install
- The free usage rules are documented in Adobe's own FAQ rather than left vague
- Pricing
- Limited free use, then an Acrobat subscription
- Watch out
- Adobe's FAQ states that without signing in you can complete only one free transaction and download the result once, and that when signed in the premium tools allow one free transaction every 30 days on a rolling basis. Files go to Adobe's cloud to be processed.
Canva free tools
- Best for
- Quick edits where the output is a finished design rather than a converted file
- Highlights
- A library of templates, photos and graphics is included on the free plan, alongside the full editor
- Small utilities sit next to a real editor, so you can resize or convert and then keep designing in the same place
- Work is saved to your Canva account, so you can pick it up on another machine
- Sign-up is free and can be done with an email address or an existing Google or Facebook account
- Pricing
- Free plan with an account. Canva Pro is a paid subscription
- Watch out
- A free Canva account is required before you can edit or download anything, your files are stored in Canva's cloud rather than on your device, and features such as Background Remover sit on the Pro plan. Canva's help centre also states that a design containing premium elements exports with a watermark for free users unless you buy the element or upgrade.
What the category still gets wrong
The category still treats where your file goes as a footnote. Almost every site in this roundup is upfront about it if you read the privacy policy, but you have to go and look. The upload happens on the same click as the compression, and the interface gives you no signal either way. A one-line statement on the tool page itself, saying whether the work happens on your machine or on theirs, would cost nothing and would let people make a sensible choice for a contract that they would not make for a screenshot.
The second gap is that the honest client-side tools are all narrow. Squoosh does images and nothing else. Photopea is an image editor and nothing else. If you want a browser tab that also merges a PDF, generates a QR code, works out GST or writes an invoice, you end up back on the upload sites for the other half of your jobs, and the privacy decision you made carefully for one file gets quietly reversed for the next. Our own free tools page exists mainly to close that spread, and the trade-off is real: no batch mode, no API, no OCR, no Office conversion, and a very large file will be limited by your own laptop.
The third gap is that free tiers are metered in ways nobody can predict before they start. Per-tool task counters, single free transactions, unstated free download limits and per-tool file size ceilings all mean the same thing in practice, which is that you find the limit halfway through the job. PDF24 is the exception worth naming, because it states plainly that there are no artificial limits, and it accepts the trade-off of processing on its own servers. Clear limits stated before the upload button would improve this category more than another ten tools would.
Common questions
Which free online tools do not upload my files?
Squoosh, Photopea and our own free tools at thebighead.ca all process files inside the browser, on your own device. Squoosh states that images never leave your device, and Photopea's privacy policy states that files you open are never sent anywhere and are processed completely inside your device by your own hardware. TinyPNG, iLovePDF, Smallpdf, PDF24, Adobe Acrobat online and Canva all upload the file to their servers to do the work.
Is it actually unsafe to upload an invoice or a contract to a free PDF site?
Unsafe is too strong for the well-known ones. iLovePDF publishes a two hour deletion window and states it does not use your content to train AI models, TinyPNG states a 48 hour maximum retention, and Smallpdf publishes ISO/IEC 27001 certification. The point is that you are relying on a company's stated policy and its security rather than on the file never leaving your machine. For a routine photo that is a fair trade. For a signed contract or anything with bank details on it, a tool that does the work locally removes the question.
Are browser-based tools slower than the ones that upload?
It depends on the file and the device. A browser tool skips the upload and the download entirely, which for a large file over an ordinary connection is usually the slowest part of the whole operation, so it often finishes first. Where a server wins is raw processing on very large files, because it has more memory and more cores than a phone does. If a browser tool struggles, that is normally your device reaching its limit rather than the tool failing.
Do any of these free tools add a watermark?
Canva does, in one specific case: its help centre states that a design containing premium elements exports with a watermark for free users unless you buy the element or upgrade, while an export that uses no premium media is watermark-free. The other free tiers here limit you by volume instead. Adobe restricts you to a single free transaction without signing in. Smallpdf lists its free plan as limited document downloads, with unlimited downloads on Pro. iLovePDF meters tasks per tool. Our own tools apply no watermark and no cap, because there is no server on our side to meter.
What is the catch with a completely free tool that has no account?
Usually one of three things: it is narrow, it is ad-supported, or it is limited by your own hardware. Squoosh is free and open source but only does images. Photopea sells a premium tier for extra features. Our tools are free with no account because they run on your device, so they cost us nothing to run, and the trade is no batch processing, no API, no OCR or Office conversion, and no saved history between devices. If a free tool with unlimited server-side processing has none of those catches, it is worth reading its privacy policy to understand what it does get from you.